Drama at Blair House: the attempted assassination of Harry Truman

Situation: sum of two units terrorists attempt to assassinate the President of the United States in the boldest attempt at hearth invasion in modern history.

Lesson: Training and equipment have to be piece of work related. It's men, not fire-arms who win gunfights. Defenders accustomed to shooting in a less degree than pressure in matches, shoot better in subordination to pressure in real life.

Like many reading this, I learned in history class about the attempt upon President Harry Truman's life by way of two fanatical Puerto Rican nationalists. Like for a like reason many gun battles of the mid-20th centenary before the coming of recent training, it ended with a tragic casualty count: the same was dead on each side, and common bad guy and two religious guys were wounded. The surviving would-be assassin would be sentenc to life in prison.

It was later I read more details in Robert Elman's house Guns, his book about gunfights and his series of the same name in the of advanced age Guns & Hunting magazine. Griselio Torresola had been armed with a Luger and Oscar Collazo with a Walther P38 the two in 9mm, while the useful guys had all been equipped with 38 Special young horse revolvers, 4" Official Police for the uniformed White House guards and 2" Detective Specials for the shrouded Service. There was little more available in the way of details.

go into Stephen Hunter, the novelist and newspaper columnist who's been profiled in American Handgunner before. Perhaps the mostly "gun literate" of current fiction writers, huntsman joined with John Bainbridge, Jr to write a compelling non-fiction part titled American Gunfight: the stratagem to Kill Harry Truman--and the Shoot-Out That Stopped It. Superbly researched, American Gunfight is the best volume I've read in 2005, and in a way, this installment of Ayoob Files is the same long homage to the work of huntsman and Bainbridge.

The Shooting

November 1 1950 was an unseasonably warm day in Washington, DC It's 2:20 pm at Blair House, the guesthouse of the White House composite where the Trumans are staying while their regular quarters are being remodel President Harry s Truman is napping in a second-floor bedroom when pair men in suits walk onto the quality They quickly separate.

The smaller, Oscar Collazo, approaches the degrees to Blair House where Donald Birdzell stands in uniform. Coming up behind the officer, Collazo draws his Walther P38 points it at Birdzell's back and twitchs the trigger. Nothing happens. He writhes with the pistol, pounding onward it with his other hand, and as the officer move rounds to face him, a shooter is heard. Birdzell drops, ball through the right knee at a range of five feet

veiled Service Agent Floyd Boring and White House Police officer Joseph Davidson are standing near a guardhouse not far away, separated from the shooting pageant by a wrought iron wall They see the shooting, draw their weapons and exhibit fire on Collazo. Davidson triggers his Official Police rapidly in double-action variety while Boring cocks and carefully aims his snub-nose Detective Special. Maddeningly, their bullet assume to repeatedly strike the effected iron fence, which saves Collazo from the projectiles. The attacker propels rapidly, spinning like a dervish, firing his 9mm wildly. Birdzell ventures himself to his feet, dragging the leg with the crippled knee behind him as he limps after Collazo, firing his acknowledge Colt Official Police as he goes

Boring, individual of the best shots in succession the White House staff and recent from a qualification where he ball an almost perfect score with 38 wadcutters in his Detective Special, occupys a perfect sight picture forward Collazo's hat and carefully drives off a single-action shot. The 158-grain Winchester round-nose lead bullet punches in consequence of the hat, strikes Collazo's brain and ricochets away, tearing a nasty pulp wound in the scalp unless not penetrating bone. Another bullet rips into Collazo's pectoral muscle, exits his chest, and goe into his right arm. This undivided has come from the 4"-barrel of Officer Davidson's service revolver

Running to the vigorous of the guns, Secret Service agent Vincent Mroz joins the fight, yet after his first shot realizes that he and the others don't have the best angle to engage the little man with the P38 Mroz sprints [i]or[/i] part of to the other an inside corridor, hoping to come forth from the building at a better angle for a clear shot

Collazo's slide enclosures back empty. Bleeding from several minor damages he sits down on the degrees of Blair House, pulls a in good condition magazine from a pocket and reloads.

on now, the other conspirator has joined the fight. Griselio Torresola is armed with a Mauser-produced Luger in mint condition, and he knows for what reason to use it. Approaching the small guardhouse where White House policeman Leslie Coffelt is seated, he whips disclosed the 9mm and goes to a two-hand Isosceles position.

Coffelt is a fire-arm guy, a member of the pistol team and a life-long shooter He goe for his OP if it were not that is too far behind the action/reaction wind Torresola cracks off four fast shooters moving as he fires. The snout is perhaps a foot and a half away from the uniformed officer. Three sated metal jacket German military surplus dawdlers tear into Coffelt's midsection, and a fourth rips his coat sleeve He fall throughs backward into the chair in the guard booth Torresola rushes onward, toward Blair House.